The Oval Office has hosted presidents, monarchs, military commanders and history-changing decisions.
Now, it is also home to a viral tube of Krazy Glue.
President Donald Trump’s increasingly elaborate transformation of the nation’s most famous office took another strange turn this week after eagle-eyed reporters noticed fresh gold decorations—and photographic evidence suggesting that Trump may be personally attaching some of them.
The discovery began Monday evening.
As Trump answered questions about Iran from behind the Resolute Desk, CNN White House producer DJ Judd spotted a tube of adhesive among the objects visible inside the room.
The image quickly spread online.
By Tuesday morning, reporters had noticed something else.
Two new golden seals had appeared on the marble fireplace, according to Daily Mail White House correspondent Jon Michael Raasch. The decorations were not visible in photographs taken during an earlier meeting in the same room.
The timing immediately raised an irresistible question:
Had the president used the glue himself?
A new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan suggests that would not be unusual.
In Regime Change, the authors describe White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt once entering the Oval Office and finding Trump personally applying glue to gilded ornaments before attaching them to the fireplace mantel.
According to the book, people around Trump were not particularly surprised.
The president, the authors wrote, was known to prefer his own decorative instincts to the work of professional designers.
That detail has transformed the tube of Krazy Glue from a random desk object into a symbol of Trump’s highly personal—and increasingly controversial—remaking of the Oval Office.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has steadily filled the room with gold.
Photographs show gilded mirrors, gold-framed portraits, golden eagle statues and decorative cherubs positioned above doorways. Ornamental details now crowd walls and surfaces that previous administrations generally kept restrained.
Every available space appears to offer another opportunity for embellishment.
The cumulative effect is impossible to ignore.
Supporters may see the redesign as unmistakably Trump: bold, lavish and unapologetically theatrical. It resembles the visual style associated with his hotels, clubs and private residences, where gold has long served as a signature.
Critics see something else.
They argue that the room is becoming cluttered, gaudy and more closely associated with personal wealth than democratic authority.
Washington Post critic Robin Givhan said the makeover works against the traditional power of the Oval Office.
“Part of the power of the Oval Office has always come from the fact that it didn’t need all of these elements in order to convey authority,” Givhan told NPR.
“The authority came from the people and from democracy.”
That criticism strikes at the deeper symbolism of the room.
The Oval Office is not supposed to resemble a throne room or private palace. Its importance comes from the office of the presidency, the Constitution and the peaceful transfer of power—not from the price or brightness of its decorations.
Trump’s redesign appears to offer a competing vision.
Authority, in this version, is displayed through visual excess: larger frames, brighter surfaces and more gold.
Interior designer Tommy Landen described the result as overwhelming.
“When you overload it and just keep adding more and more, it becomes overwhelming,” Landen told Newsweek. “It becomes gaudy and tacky.”
The criticism has not slowed the additions.
The new fireplace seals are only the latest items to appear inside the room. Reporters and photographers have documented the gradual accumulation of gold over more than a year.
Trump has insisted that the decorations are made from 24-karat gold.
But even that claim has drawn scrutiny.
HuffPost reported that some of the ornamental curlicue moldings resemble polyurethane decorations manufactured in Taiwan and sold through Home Depot for approximately $58.
That does not prove the Oval Office pieces came from the retailer or were made from the same material. But the resemblance has fueled online ridicule and questions about whether the visual display is as luxurious as Trump claims.
For critics, the possibility that mass-produced decorative pieces are being glued onto the Oval Office walls makes the spectacle even more extraordinary.
The office designed to symbolize American executive power may now be decorated with materials resembling items available in a home-improvement aisle.
And the president may be applying them himself.
Trump’s supporters are unlikely to view any of this as a serious controversy. Presidents routinely alter the Oval Office by changing portraits, carpets, curtains and furniture. Every administration attempts to make the room reflect the personality and values of its occupant.
Trump has simply taken that tradition much further.
But the viral glue image has given the makeover a quality that polished official photographs could not.
It makes the transformation appear less like a carefully planned redesign and more like an ongoing personal craft project.
A new ornament appears.
A tube of adhesive sits nearby.
A book reports that Trump has previously been seen gluing decorations onto the mantel.
Then another piece of gold turns up the next morning.
The White House has not confirmed that Trump used the tube to attach the latest seals. But the sequence was enough to capture the internet’s imagination.
The Oval Office was once famous for its restrained elegance.
Under Trump, it is becoming famous for something very different: gold surfaces, crowded walls and a president who reportedly does not wait for decorators when he sees an empty space.
The strangest part may be that he does not appear finished.
At this rate, the question is no longer whether Trump will add more gold.
It is whether the Oval Office has any room left to hold it.
